By Andrea Banda
Assistant Opinions Editor
Members of the Pepperdine community felt a quake of distrust toward Public Safety last October when a racial profiling incident stirred campus. Senior Aly Pinder said that Public Safety had singled him out over his Caucasian friends in two different situations that occurred within the same week. He called it racial profiling.
Incidents like that over the past several years reaffirmed in many students minds that Public Safety under Jim Huffman resembled campus police, rather than a service-oriented department aimed at promoting student welfare. Huffman’s background in law enforcement as a former Los Angeles and San Joaquin sheriff’s deputy led Public Safety from its roots as a campus security agency to a law enforcement agency.
The curiosity of the Pepperdine community heightened again last semester when Huffman announced his retirement from the department. People questioned whether Huffman’s retirement was entirely personal or if the influence of university administrators were involved. According to university officials, the decision was Huffman’s, but it did coincide with a shift in Public Safety’s focus.
With Huffman’s retirement last spring, campus administration took the opportunity to influence change in the department.
“We want Public Safety to be fully integrated into the mission and ethos of the campus,” said Jeff Pippin, vice president of finance and administration. “The new direction of Public Safety is ready to fulfill all functions of a professional public safety department, but to primarily be seen as a unit that exists to be helpful to the campus community.”
According to administrators, new DPS director Earl Carpenter has intertwined the vision of the department with that of the university. The new department is focused on resolving problems and better serving students.
Public Safety directors said they are optimistic about interacting with students, making necessary changes in the department and seeing the effects that those changes will have on the community.
According to Assistant Director Robert McKelvy, the importance of the new mission is carried over into every aspect of the department. DPS officers are trained to follow the morals, ethics and the mission of the university.
“We want them to be model citizens of the community that support that ideology,” McKelvy said. “We want them to welcome everybody with open arms, we want service with a smile.”
The service-oriented mission of DPS is penetrating the department as officers are adapting to Carpenter’s way of doing things.
“It’s become more of a service-oriented department toward the students, faculty and staff,” senior officer Alex Ghazalpour said. “The service orientation is what I look forward to. It’s the gratification of meeting someone’s needs.”
Public Safety’s evolution from a campus police force to a community service-oriented department will not happen overnight.
Meanwhile student views of Public Safety remain mixed.
“Public Safety is one of the biggest challenges in being a Resident Advisor,” junior Sarah Hunt said.
Hunt said she planned to hold an event in her hall and cleared it a week in advance with Public Safety. The day of the event she called to confirm when DPS told her that there was no way she could hold the event. They told her she should have called in advance.
However, Rockwell Towers RA Jessica Whitney takes a different view.
She said a resident of Towers had a sudden serious medical condition and needed medical equipment that confined her to her room. She said that DPS officers followed their service-oriented mission and checked in on the young woman several times.
“They stopped by her room just to see how she was feeling,” Whitney said.
The real challenge presented to Pepperdine students in the midst of this evolution, all agree, is learning to trust Public Safety, especially after incidents like those of last October.
“We can’t tell everyone that you have to trust us, we have to earn that,” McKelvy said. “There is not an officer in this department right now that would sit and say that (the Pinder) situation was an appropriate action.”
According to McKelvy, DPS administration now emphasizes that everyone is to be treated with respect.
Supporting the department’s view on increasing student interaction and service to the community, Operation Identification, a theft and crime prevention program, has been put into place. Public Safety issued literature and loaned engravers for students to use to identify their property. Officers have also conducted computer theft prevention and fire safety seminars.
Also part of the evolution of Public Safety is their relocation to a permanent home in the Center for Communication and Business.
New technology and amenities in the facility include radios turned to local sheriff and fire department frequencies in every office and new locker and shower rooms. Its proximity to the CBC provides greater interaction with students.
“It’s nice to be in a facility where we interact with students,” Carpenter said.
In addition to the technological advancements, the building itself has not only affected procedure within the department, but also officer morale.
“It has raised morale tremendously,” Ghazalpour said. “It’s given us interaction with students and our level of service is more accessible to the Pepperdine community.”
During regular hours the DPS front desk is open to assist in the vehicle registrations and issuing student I.D. cards. After 5 p.m. the adjacent dispatch window is open for all Public Safety concerns.
October 03, 2002